With Rome appearing to square off with Brussels over its contentious budget, BTPs have faced considerable pressure and bank stocks have been hammered. This is the nefarious doom loop: Italian banks own a large chunk of Italian government debt and, given the lack of...

While we don’t want to get drawn into the Byzantine world of Italian politics, we do have a thing or two to say about bond markets. What has struck us the most about the Italian bond market has been the degree of volatility in BTPs and drop in liquidity. The first...

Eurozone growth goes from setback to setback with last week’s GDP number being just the latest in a long line of similar disappointments. Soft indicators have consistently overstated the strength of this year’s recovery, and the unpleasant truth is that as one...

This weekend’s Italian elections are provoking a good deal of commentary and fueling mounting concern about possible consequences for the European debt crisis, and in particular for the outlook for Italian sovereign spreads in the short term. We think much of this...

Events of the last week have once more brought Italy back into the headlines. The decision of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to deny support to the technocratic government of Mario Monti sent alarm bells ringing in markets across the globe. But the excitement...

Greece is in default and Ireland and Portugal are in limbo with the market pricing in a Greek outcome in both economies. However, the situation has changed in Spain and Italy and on this measure alone, the ECB’s LTRO has been successful. Italian and Spanish bond...

Government bond yields have declined substantially in Italy on the back of ECB’s 3Y LTRO as well as the commitment of the new government to austerity. Yet, leading indicators have slumped to a post crisis lows and sustainable growth seems far away as ever. Amid...

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